Did Rich Russians Buy Their Way to Safety On Costa Concordia?

By

Robert Frank

Jan 23, 2012 1:16 pm ET

Reports in the European press say that wealthy Russians paid “wads of cash” to get on the lifeboats as the Costa Concordia cruise ship was going down.

EPA

The reports say Italian prosecutors are investigating claims from other passengers and witnesses on shore who said rich Russians paid the money to get an early spot on the lifeboats. A resident of Giglio, where the lifeboats made shore after the disaster, told German media: “I went to the boats as I saw them coming in expecting to see women, children and the injured but all I saw were healthy men and elegant women in evening gowns who were speaking Russian.”

A U.S. spokesman for the Costa Concordia declined comment.

The claims may well be exaggerated. Yet they’re likely to recall one of the enduring narratives of the Titanic, and add to the class-warfare raging in the U.S. and Europe.

When the Titanic sank, of course, there were widespread claims that the rich got the lifeboats while the non-rich were left to drown. This was even recalled in a recent New Yorker cover, echoing the view that in the current recession the rich were bailed out while the rest of American sank.

The reality, of course, is a little more complicated. The story that the third-class passengers in steerage were locked below (as made famous by Leonardo DiCaprio in the Hollywood epic “Titanic”) is now regarded by historians as largely myth.

When the Titanic sank, rich and poor alike died. But the ratios were still skewed in favor of the wealthy. In first class over a third of the men, almost all of the women and all the children survived. In second class, it was less than 10 per cent of the men, 84 per cent of the women and all the children. In steerage 12 per cent of the men, 55 per cent of the women and less than one in three of the children survived, according to reports in the British Telegraph.

One explanation is that more of the rich got away because their cabins were closer to the lifeboats – not because of some inherent class privilege. The same might have been true with the Costa Concordia.

Still, in today’s populist times, the idea of the wealthy buying their way to safety at the expense of others clearly has resonance.